Southall guilty of misconduct

* This is the final edition of the Informer. Thanks for subscribing - and we hope the improved Wrap subscription package meets with your approval. If you haven't made up your mind whether to renew your subscription, please visit http://www.theguardian.com/wrap to sample the new service. And if you have any queries, please get in touch with us at the addresses at the foot of this email.

Regards Ros Taylor editor, the Wrap

Also in today's Informer: * US helicopters fire on insurgents * Missing backpacker's family make appeal * Scientists warn of new vCJD outbreaks

THE NEWS IN 90 SECONDS

The General Medical Council found consultant paediatrician David Southall guilty of serious professional misconduct when he accused a father of murdering his two baby sons after watching a television documentary on their deaths. The GMC banned Professor Southall from carrying out child protection work for three years Full story

US helicopter gunships today fired on militia loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf as a two-month truce between the sides continued to crumble. Full story

The parents and girlfriend of a British backpacker missing in Australia since an altercation at a rock concert last week appealed today for information about his whereabouts. Full story

Two leading scientists investigating the human form of BSE warned yesterday that there may be new outbreaks of the disease as further evidence emerged that more of the population may be susceptible.Full story

EDITOR'S PICK The Kerry campaign is exploiting the subtle distinction the US election funding rules make between 'soft' and 'hard' money to maximise the impact of an ad, writes Philip James.Soft money, hard sell

And now, the end is near, and so the Informer faces, the final curtain. Dear readers, we'll say it clear, we'll state our case, of which we're certain. We've lived a life that's full - and sometimes quite quirky - but more, much more than this, we did it my way ...

Well here we are, the final And Finally. We'd firstly like to thank those readers who wrote in to say they enjoyed our daily search for the odder happenings in the world and will miss this dispatch of the weird, the whimsical, the serendipitous, the slapstick, and the little bit freaky.

As a final hurrah, regular And Finally writers Simon Jeffery, Sarah Left, Mark Oliver and Ros Taylor have selected a handful of their favourites from these last few golden years.

We wanted to start by saluting the genre of German thieves caught in unusual circumstances. One example was the thief who was part of a gang mugging a man at a railway station and who, after emptying the victim's wallet, accidentally handed his own wallet back to him ... with all his identification documents. There was also the Berlin purse-snatcher knocked out with a wok and the Frankfurt thief arrested after he took a bite on a meatball from the sandwich shop he was raiding, helpfully leaving behind his DNA. Criminal master minds, every one.

We also wanted to remind you of the Romanian Sndu Gurguiatu who first sued for money and then for love. Besotted Sndu took his former employers to court for unfair dismissal and fell deeply in love with Judge Elena Lala. And there was only one way of getting close to the married judge - litigation. So he sued his employers and others dozens of times, just to be able to see her.

In one case, which he won, he sued for the right to have two towels and enough soap to wash up at work.

Eventually, the infatuation subsided and Mr Gurguiatu decided to go public with his story. Ms Lala said she was "stunned" to learn she had been the object of his affection. "I remember judging his cases, but for me all cases are equal," she said. "I feel pity for this man."

So do we, Judge Lala, so do we.

We also wanted to remind you of how tough it can be to try and promote vegetarian cuisine in the US. Residents of the Californian town of Rodeo were unimpressed when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) offered them USD20,000-worth of veggie burgers to change the town's name to Unity.

"A bunch of people from Virginia can't just come to town and wave around a few veggie burgers and think they own the place," one resident told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Finally we wanted to big up those folks from the Sands Casino hotel in Atlantic City, who recreated the famously lowbrow painting of dogs playing poker with ... five live, panting dogs playing poker. In shirts and ties.

We wrote about this only because a friend of a friend of Informer writer Sarah Left walked into a casino last night and saw a dog playing seven card stud. "Wow, that's incredible," she told the dog's owner. "What an amazing dog!"

"He's not that good," the owner responded. "He wags his tail when he's got a good hand."